Digital images have become commonplace in interactive media such as web pages on the World Wide Web. In many systems the image is captured by a digital camera and stored as an image file, which an online user can later view.
Prior art digital image display systems have recognized that users/viewers often have an interest in knowing from where an image is captured (the location of image recording device when the image was recorded). To accomplish this, some prior art digital image display systems require manual entry of information identifying the capture location in the form of a header or “watermark” in the image file. While this may give one who receives the image file an indication of where the image emanates, the user may still have to use great imagination to picture the location of capture. Additionally, the header information may not be in a user-friendly format, making deciphering necessary. Further, such systems are prone to mistakes due to human error in entering the capture location data.
One method of improving on the previously described system is to automate the capture location information gathering process by harnessing automatic location systems. For example, the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) is a well-known method for pinpointing the location of a particular GPS receiver with a fairly high degree of accuracy. Other methods include the use of Radio Triangulation (RT) systems. Using such an approach, a GPS receiver can be either incorporated in the hardware of the digital camera, or located nearby. A subsequent image file will contain not only the raw image data, but also a date and time stamp, along with header information related to the location of the GPS receiver when the image is collected. While this approach may eliminate human errors, and introduce a higher degree of capture location accuracy, the header may still be difficult to decipher and the viewer is still required to use his/her imagination picturing the environs of the image capture location.
Thus, there is a great need wholly unaddressed by the prior art to provide a digital image capture and display system wherein the viewer of a digital image can also have an easy, user-friendly way to visualize the image capture location.